he still faces an unresolved fiscal situation and looks like republicans may be extending the debt ceiling by a few months but he still has major budget cuts to deal with this spring. do you see his relationship with republicans improving at all as they try to fix this crisis? >> it is going to be a real confrontation. the republicans did blink. that's exactly right, bianna, and said they don't want this confrontation over the debt limit, that does supposed to hit february and they are going to extend it, as he said, probably in april. the president will sign that which gives them a space to try to come up again with some kind of big budget deal before those across-the-board budget cuts hit in march, and the government is set to shut down at the end of march. there is no question that these big fiscal issues, taxes and spending are going to define the first quarter of the president's second term. >> george, talk about this term, the second term curse. we -- reagan had iran-contra. nixon, of course, had watergate. clinton had monica lewinsky. why is it that second terms tend to go sour? >>